Last year, more than 2,200 people died or went missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea The UN says. More and more European countries are proud of their success far-right policies aimed at excluding migrantsexperts warn that unless real changes occur, even more people could die in 2025.
As revelers around the world welcomed the new year, grim news came from the Mediterranean: A small ship from Libya sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa, leaving only seven survivors, including an eight-year-old whose mother was among more than 20 people reported missing.
It's an all-too-common story in the region, where countless ships carrying migrants are trying to cross the waters to Europe. Many never complete their journey. In 2024, almost 1,700 people died or went missing along the Central Mediterranean route, which stretches from North Africa to Italy and Malta.
The deaths come after a year of increasing attacks on civilian rescue boats in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as an attempt by Italy's far-right government returning asylum seekers to Albania.
Michael Gordon, a research fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont., said non-governmental organizations conducting search and rescue operations have become an “easy scapegoat” for authorities frustrated by the excessive influx of migrants.
“The result of this criminalization is… fewer resources at sea to help migrants in difficulty. People will continue to die as a result,” he told CBC News.
Above 31,000 migrants died or went missing according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency, since 2014 in the Mediterranean Sea.
The death toll in 2024 includes “hundreds of children, representing one fifth of all people migrating across the Mediterranean,” Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia and Special Coordinator for the Response to Refugees and Migrants in Europe, said In statement last week. “Most are fleeing brutal conflict and poverty.”
'Widespread criminalization' of civilian rescue boats
According to experts and human rights groups, growing anti-immigration sentiment makes these crossings more dangerous.
In 2023, Italy banned search and rescue NGOs from carrying out more than one rescue operation during a single voyage, meaning ships would have to ignore any other distress calls they receive or face heavy fines and vessel detention.
In November, the German NGO Sea-Watch filed the case criminal complaint against the Italian authorities over the September shipwreck that killed 21 people, claiming that it alerted the Italian Coast Guard to the boat's distress but a rescue vessel was not dispatched for two days.
Italian authorities also routinely designate remote ports for NGO rescue ships. Last month, SOS Méditerranée, an international rescue organization, said on social media that it had forced to travel more than 1,600 kilometers over several days to ensure the safety of 162 survivors after Italian authorities ignored requests for a closer port of entry.
“We have been punished for simply fulfilling our legal obligation to save lives,” said Juan Matias Gil, a representative of Doctors Without Borders/Doctors Without Borders. statement after a 60-day detention order was issued for his rescue ship in August.
This “widespread criminalization” of civilian rescue operations unnecessarily puts people's lives at risk, said researcher Gordon, who also works with the International Center for Migration Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.
“I think it's also very much linked to the rise of far-right governments in Europe.”
The number of migrants entering Italy is decreasing dramatically
The policies of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, elected in 2022 on an anti-immigration platform, have yielded results for her government in 2024. Last year, just over 66,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat, approximately 60% less compared to 157,000 people who arrived in 2023 belong to the country The Ministry of Internal Affairs reports.
According to IOM data, the recorded number of deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean Sea – already an estimated minimum, as many boats disappear without a trace during the crossing – fell by about 28 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year.
“Just because we have fewer arrivals doesn't mean we pose less risk,” Nicola Dell'Arciprete, UNICEF national coordinator for the migration and refugee response in Italy, told CBC News.
Dell'Arciprete worked with children who had fled war, extreme poverty or political upheaval. Many people arrive without parents or guardians.
“They are really running from nightmares,” he said. “The factors that push people towards Europe don't really change.”
Minimizing migrant deaths requires greater investment in reception centers, contingency plans for periods of high arrivals, safer and legal immigration routes and increased search and rescue operations, Dell'Arciprete said, adding that the question is whether there is “the political will to move along these lines.”
This year, European countries will be assessing their regulations to plan the implementation of the new one European Union Pact on Asylum and Migration. The pact, the first update to European asylum law in two decades, was agreed in 2024 but will not be fully implemented until 2026.
The EU pays countries to control migration
When it comes to migrant control, Italy and the EU have largely focused on countries of origin. The EU provided ten million euros in aid Tunisia in 2023 strengthen border control and stop migrant boats from leaving their shores, and wrote: Agreement worth EUR 7.4 billion ($11 billion CDN) to strengthen “stability” in Egypt, with a focus on migration control.
Meloni played a key role in securing the agreement with Tunisia, which is now largely credited with reducing migrant flows in 2024, as well as a similar agreement Italy reached with Libya in 2017.
Human rights groups have said returning migrants found at sea to Libya exposes them to torture and ill-treatment if arbitrarily detained.
Nevertheless, Italy's immigration policy has received praise from other European leaders, such as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who in September he praised Italy's “remarkable progress”.
Italy's latest tactic to curb the number of migrants collapsed last fall when Meloni struck a deal with Albania under which up to 36,000 asylum seekers each year would be sent directly to a non-EU country to await deportation, with Italian courts they will refuse this decision to approve the transfer of migrants.
The plan has stalled over disagreements over what constitutes a safe country, although Meloni promised in December to continue the project.
Experts say that without significant change, the tragedies in the Mediterranean will continue.
“Unless we strengthen search and rescue operations, until we create safe and legal routes for children to travel to Europe, we will see more deaths,” Dell'Arciprete said. – And that's a simple fact.
At least 59 migrants died after a boat with 200 people on board crashed off the coast of Italy. Many of the dead were children. The disaster once again brought the issue of illegal and dangerous border crossings into the spotlight.